Last night at the School Board meeting, the district sunshined its 2013-2014 Proposal for Re-Openers to the contract.  By last year’s agreement, the district and the LTA each get to re-open 3 articles of the contract, excluding Article 6: Salary and Benefits.  The district proposed the following:

• “The parties will meet to agree upon outstanding language from previous agreements and then begin negotiations for reopeners for:
• Calendar and Work Year – The District seeks to establish a work calendar and subsequent student attendance calendar for the 2013-2014 school year.
• Retirement/Release Incentive – The District seeks to negotiate a retirement/release incentive that will potentially mitigate the number of layoff [sic] necessary withing the certificated employee workforce.”

download a copy of the district’s initial proposal (for 2013-2014)

As anyone who follows our negotiations can see, this is very different from past district initial proposals.  Last year, for example, the district proposed:

• lowering the number of teachers require to pass a contract variance from 75% to 55%,
• lowering the number of days the LTA President can be released to do union business from 10 to 5,
• allowing the District to file grievances against LTA,
• capping health benefits,
• limiting the retiree health benefits of newly hired teachers,
• allowing mandatory Friday meetings,
• replacing the 2:38 dismissal with something that would allow for “common collaboration,”
• increasing class-size averages beyond 29:1,
• changing the salary schedule so teachers’ advances depend on their evaluations.

download a copy of last year’s initial proposal from the district (for 2012-2013)

 Hopefully, these new proposals represent a desire on the part of the district to work together and find solutions to our challenges, rather than just throwing out provocative proposals that even the district doesn’t really want.

The Association is currently surveying our members with regards to their needs and wants to improve their working conditions.  Once surveying is complete, we will offer our own initial proposals to the district based on member input, and negotiations will formally begin.  Keep checking in here for the latest updates and information.